Quick analysis of U.S. Sprint Qualifying Results

17-9. That's the U.S. won-lost record against peer nations in today's sprint WOC qualifying race. That's a winning record. It is a good result.

In 2005, the U.S. went 5-12.In 2006, the U.S. went 14-16.

Only one U.S. runner - Sandra Zurcher - qualified for the final. But, overall the team is showing some progress over the last two years.

From a U.S. standpoint, it is nice to see only one Canadian - Pam James - with a win over a U.S. orienteer today.

Peer nations for my comparison are: Portugal, New Zealand, Ireland, Belgium, Canada and Japan. Back in 2004, I put together groups of peer nations by looking at each IOF nation and measuring the depth of elite orienteering, the history of WOC participation, the size (area and population) of the nation, wealth of the nation, and whether or not the nation was European. I then grouped nations that shared common features. After lots of whinning, I dropped a couple of nations from my U.S. peer list because people didn't want to be compared to France or Slovakia (nations that are similar to the U.S. in many measures, but consistently have much better results).

When I first put the list together, I had an idea that it might catch on as a way to look at U.S. WOC results. It didn't. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who ever makes these comparisons.

when you talk about population of the nation and wealth of the nation, do you mean the orienteering nation, or the general nation.

Half the world live in China and India, but they have an orienteering population of enarly zero. Finland only has a few million people, but it probably has the largest orienteering population in the world...